On June 21st, 2017, the Global Business Startup Idea Hackathon was held in the HIT building, hosted by National IT Industry Promotion Agency and the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning. The competition was open to anyone interested in business startups, ranging from students at Hanyang University (HYU) to high school students.

Around 150 participants entered the competition and 15 teams formed through the idea-sharing process. About 40% of the participants were foreign students from 16 different countries.

Diverse types of events had provided for the participants. A 'Talk Concert Session' was held, where alumni entrepreneurs of HYU gave speeches about their success and how they became successful. During break, souvenirs were handed out and prizes were made available through a lottery to keep the participants focused.

Ideas to change the world

The basic goal of the event was to spread the passion of global business startups, which was why the topic of this event has been “to find the right business item based on a certain country”. Since most of the teams consisted of at least one or more foreigners (in some, most of the group members have been foreigners), there had been some language barriers as well. “We are communicating in three different languages and I am a little overwhelmed right now,” said Angela Baumann (Department of Accounting, 3rd year).

Angela and her teammates are enjoying the competition.

Business ideas were mostly related to China due to its large target population and a lot of participants had come from China as well. Some teams however, decided to target Korea. Ahmed Al-Anesi, who came from Yemen and currently enrolling at HYU for an MBA, had come up with the idea of linking foreign students who have lived for a while in Korea with foreign tourists, since it is hard for tourists to see the untranslated parts of Korea. “There’s more fun in the unknown areas of Korea and since a lot of us have lived here for three to four years, it would be better for tourists to match themselves with us who know the city more,” explained Anesi.

Ideas that have been accumulated and refined over a period of time were highly appreciated during the assessment session. “We do realize that it was a short period of time to put together the ideas of six to seven different people. Some teams had developed their ideas for a longer period of time and we could tell the difference,” said Choi. The winner of the event was team 'Class China', which put forward the idea of developing a language lab on YouTube. “It was a privilege to meet my teammates through this contest and I will work hard to become an entrepreneur who makes Hanyang proud,” said Jung Chang-hee (Korean Language & Literature, ’16).

Kang and his teammates are discussing their startup idea.

Winners of the Hackathon gathered to take a group picture.

With these brilliant ideas roaming around, it would be a great experience for those who are interested in business startups to participate in these contests to learn more about how startups are planned and set up, getting to know people from other fields in the process.